Enter the scammers. They are posing as Medicare representatives and saying they need your Medicare number and will send you a new card.

“What they’re trying to do is get your Social Security number,” said Leita King, scam prevention coordinator at Lifespan of Greater Rochester. The organization that provides non-medical information to people older than 50 and their caregivers received a grant to educate the community about Medicare fraud.

Social Security numbers can be a gold mine to identity thieves. King said the scammers know they’ll be losing a potential source of those numbers once the new cards come out and people destroy their old cards.

The thought of people falling for the ploy worries Roseann Wisniewski of Irondequoit, who recently sniffed out a different type of Medicare scam. She said she knows at least one elderly person who could be susceptible.

“She has a little bit of an issue with dementia,” Wisniewski said. “If she were to answer a call like that, she’d give her Medicare number.”

In Wisniewski’s case, she received a call from someone claiming to be from Medicare headquarters in North Carolina. The caller, who identified herself as Joan, said Wisniewski’s medical records showed she had back pain, and Medicare would pay for a brace.

Wisniewski doesn’t have Medicare. And she doesn’t have back pain. She also works in the health industry, and knows that scammers will try to bilk Medicare for fraudulent purchases. Medicare fraud costs taxpayers tens of billions a year, according to various sources including a fact sheet from the office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

“There were all kinds of red flags,” Wisniewski said.

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